GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY Concept Art Shows Unused Designs for Gamora and Nebula

I’m strongly considering picking up the Guardians of the Galaxy concept art book because it has to be filled with interesting designs. I’m happy with almost everything in the finished feature, but I’m always curious about what could have been, and concept art always shows roads not taken. Artist Andy Park has posted some of his unused designs for Thanos’ daughters Gamora and Nebula, and I think what he came up with was in some ways superior to what we saw in the finished feature.

You can see that Gamora’s skin was more intricate and at one point she didn’t even have to be green. On the one hand, I think this makes her more visually interesting, but overall, restraint was probably the best way to go when you consider that the team already had one heavily-tattooed humanoid.

As for Nebula, I like that Park’s designs make her look more powerful. She still has the bald head and cybernetic eye-piece, but the piece is more pronounced in Park’s drawings than in the finished feature. Compared to the character’s final look, you can see how much Nebula was scaled back. I assume director James Gunn‘s thinking was that instead of making Nebula look like an unstoppable warrior, she should come off as the unimpressive sibling. If she looks like too much of a badass, then Gamora would have to look even tougher.